Retirement for Young’uns

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If you’re under the age of say 45, have you ever stopped to think about what your retirement will look like? With the recent mulling over of raising the Social Security eligibility age (to 70 in case you didn’t know), maybe it’s time to take a reality based look at our golden years.

As our economy shifts away from manufacturing (something I personally find very sad), and into service, I think people will be more likely to change jobs dozens of times in their lifetime.

I personally have worked for 5 different companies in the span of 10 years—not including the 5 legitimate and as many illogical businesses I started over the same period. To say that I view retirement differently than 99% of the American population is a vast understatement.

So, how does having so many jobs affect retirement?

With all this job-hopping, the emphasis on personal responsibility for your financial future cannot be emphasized enough. Add in the question of social security’s solvency, the disappearance of the corporate pension, and the possibility of state bankruptcies, and you can easily see we are walking a financial tightrope with no safety net.

Just the other day I was speaking with a co-worker (he’ll turn 50 next year and has worked for the same company for nearly 20 years now) about the myriad of businesses I started. One thing he could absolutely not get his head around was how I managed my own benefits. Health. Retirement. The whole lot. For him, it was a scary prospect. For me, it was freedom and control. Two very different mindsets indeed.

Perhaps we should change our definition of retirement.

A short but profound summary. How about you? Have you really looked at retirement, as it’s defined by older generations? Do you agree?